Virginia Plain

Released on E.G. as a non-album single on 4 August 1972, with Mackay's instrumental The Numberer on the other side, it was recorded from 10 to 12 July at Command Studios in London and produced by Peter Sinfield. Ferry sang and played piano and Mellotron, Mackay played oboe and saxophone, Eno played VCS3 synthesizer and treatments, Thompson played drums, Manzanera played electric guitar and Rik Kenton played bass. It reached number 4 in the UK.

The title comes from a pop-art painting Ferry made at art school, of a giant cigarette packet with a pin-up on it. Ferry called it a throwaway watercolor and the song full of little images and throwaway lines, and told Melody Maker it reflected a whole American Dream thing inspired by Warhol's Factory. He told the Mail on Sunday that the band had an unfinished song and finished it quickly because Island needed another single. Robert E. Lee, in the lyric, is the band's lawyer, not the general. There is no chorus, and the title appears only in the last line. Sinfield encouraged the abrupt ending to catch DJs off guard.

Recording

Most of the track was recorded live in the studio, and Manzanera improvised the guitar solo, playing the first idea that came to him. The motorbike at the opening was taped in real time, with a bike taken to Piccadilly Circus and a reel-to-reel machine. Manzanera later said the song sums up the essence of Roxy Music in two minutes and 58 seconds. Thompson said that even while they were recording it, the band felt it would be a success. Ferry said the single was much more confident than the album: everyone was featured, with oboe, synthesizer and powerful drums, and the lyrics were more assured. He said he knew the band was taking off when he first heard it on midday radio.

On television

The band recorded their Top of the Pops appearance on Wednesday 23 August 1972 at BBC Television Centre, and it was broadcast the next day on a show that also featured Mott the Hoople, Slade, Lynsey de Paul and Alice Cooper. The Tate's magazine noted the bright colors and lurex, Manzanera's fly-eye glasses, Thompson in leopardskin, and Eno barely visible except for close-ups of his silver-gloved hands during the synthesizer solo, about two and a quarter minutes in. Manzanera later recalled miming to the record, in huge sunglasses with lenses covered in diamante studs, which left him unable to see what he was doing. The exposure helped lift the single into the UK top five and the debut album back to number 10. The same clip appears in the Sex Pistols documentary The Filth and the Fury, and Steve Jones has named Roxy as a childhood influence.

The Tate's writer called the song a classic Trojan Horse, a three-minute pop song that works as a cultural manifesto. A reissue in 1977 paired with Pyjamarama reached number 11. Virgin Atlantic named a Boeing 747-400 Virginia Plain from 1997 to 2013, and the song appears in Todd Haynes's film Velvet Goldmine (1998). The upload in the hypersongs web is the band's Top of the Pops performance of 24 August 1972, posted on Bryan Ferry's channel, not the studio single.